Social physique anxiety and physical self-esteem: Gender and age effects

Abstract

The aim of this study was to test the generalisability of the factor pattern, structural parameters, factor correlations and latent mean structure of social physique anxiety and physical self-esteem across gender, age and gender x age. The social physique anxiety scale and general physical self-esteem scale from the physical self-perception profile was administered to high school and university students aged 11-24 years (N = 2334). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to test the adequacy of a two-factor correlated model in the full sample, and separately by gender, age and gender x age sub-samples. The CFA model satisfied criteria for goodness-of-fit with the data in all sub-samples, the only exception was for females aged 21 and over. Tests of invariance of the factor pattern, structural parameters and correlations across age, gender and age x gender revealed few decrements in goodness-of-fit. Latent means analysis revealed that females had consistently higher levels of social physique anxiety and lower levels of physical self-esteem than males, with the exception of the 11-12 age group. Results extend previous findings that females tend to report higher levels of social physique anxiety and lower levels of physical self-esteem than males by demonstrating that these differences are consistent across age group.

Effects of a Two-Month Training Period on Soldiers’ General Health, Social Physique Anxiety, and Body Mass Index

“…This variable is significant because it has been shown to be relevant to behavioral factors and have a psychological relationship with health. For instance, SPA is related to body image (27), physical self-esteem (28), eating attitudes (24), dissatisfaction with appearance and weight (29), and motivation to avoid health-related behaviors, such as motor activity (30). In addition, there is a substantial body of research that has examined the structure of SPA and the contextual factors that give rise to this variable (25,31).…”

Self-compassion as a predictor of social physique anxiety in athletes

“…This anxiety, which is defined as social physique anxiety, arises when an individual thinks that this/her social environment can make negative evaluations about his/her physical appearance and it presents as a subtype of social anxiety associated with image of the body (Hart, Leary, & Rejeski, 1989). Social physique anxiety, which advocates that people have a tendency to control how they look in front of the others and which is based on self-presentation, has been reported to manifest when people think that they are insufficient about creating the image they want about their physique in front of the eyes of other people (Hagger & Stevenson, 2010).…”

Measures of Concerns with Public Image and Social Evaluation

“…Most studies show that women score significantly higher on the SPAS than men (Hagger & Stevenson, 2010;Motl & Conroy, 2000), but one did not find a difference when using a translated version of the SPAS with a Swedish sample (Lindwall, 2004).…”